Why Study History
of Judaism
We
learn Jewish history not only to avoid the mistakes of the past, but to
understand where our destiny is taking us.The Bible as History
An
enormous amount of information in the Bible has been borne out by
archeology. There is not much direct evidence, but there is a huge
amount of indirect or circumstantial evidence.

1812 BCE
- Time of Abraham begins
(Mesopotamian
& Egyptian civilization in flower)The World of Abraham
By
understanding the character of Abraham, the "proto-Jew", one can understand
what Jews are all about.Founder of Judaism
Abraham gave rise to a nation of Hebrews—people who live "on the other
side."
The Promised Land
God
gave Abraham and his family the Land of Israel as a laboratory where his
descendants are supposed to create the nation that’s the model for the
world.

1712 BCE - Time of Isaac begins1652 BCE - Time of Jacob begins
Isaac and His Sons
History repeats itself. Whatever groove Abraham or Isaac or Jacob are going
to carve, their descendants are going to get stuck in it.

1544 BCE - Joseph sold into slavery
Joseph
The
story of Joseph demonstrates a classic historic pattern of the Jew in
Diaspora. The Jew arrives impoverished, works hard despite deprivation, and
rises to the top.

1522 BCE - Josephwelcomes his family to Egypt
Reunion
Joseph realizes that through the generations, the family has created a rut
of hatred among the brothers. To remedy the situation, he sets the stage for a great test.

1428 BCE -Israelites enslaved in Egypt1392 BCE - Time of Moses begins
(Egyptian cities of Pithom & Ramses are built)
Moses In an all-time irony of ironies, the savior of the Jewish people is raised in the house of the ultimate enemy of the Jews.

1312 BCE - Exodus
The Ten Plagues Most miracles are natural phenomena with awesomely good timing. The Ten Plagues
are a notable exception. Here the laws of nature are turned upside down to help free the Jews.

1312 BCE - Torah given at Mount Sinai
(Canaanites tribes occupy Promised Land)
Mount Sinai The encounter between God and the Jews at Mount Sinai was a totally unique event
in all of human history.
The Golden Calf
Only
1/10 of 1% of the Jews participated in worshipping the golden calf. Yet
God’s reaction makes it clear he is blaming the whole nation. What’s going
on here?

1272 BCE - Conquest of Promised Land
The Tragedy of the Spies The spies story occurred on one of the most significant and tragic dates in
Jewish history—the 9th of Av. Every major disaster in Jewish history is connected to this date.
Joshua & the Conquest of the Promised Land This is no typical war of conquest replete with pillaging and murder. God has
said, "If you follow My instructions all will go well."

1106 BCE - Time of the Judges begins
(Philistines occupy coastal area of Israel)
The Time of the Judges The Jews had no king, but when they needed guidance they turned to "judges," who
were both warriors and prophets.

879 BCE - Saul anointed king
King Saul King Saul was a great man who committed one terrible mistake, dooming his reign
from the start.

877 BCE - Time of King David begins
David The Shepherd & The Warrior Still too young to fight in the army, David becomes Israel’s champion when
he slays Goliath.
David The King He established Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, choosing a place that Jacob
called “the gate of heaven.”

836 BCE - King Solomon begins his rule825 BCE - First Temple completed
(Assyrian empire rising in the north)
King Solomon King
Solomon, the wisest of all men, built the Temple in Jerusalem and reigned
over Israel’s golden age.

796 BCE - Israel split into two kingdoms
A Divided Nation In response to the king’s arrogance, the ten northern tribes secede, splitting
Israel in two.

555 BCE - Assyrians overturn northern Israel; Ten tribes are lost
Assyrian Conquest The Assyrians, who conquer northern Israel, introduce a new way of dealing with
vanquished nations. It’s called exile.

547 BCE -
Sennacherib attacks Jerusalem
(Babylonians overrun Assyrian empire)
The End of Israel Judah lasts another of 134 years before it, too, falls bringing to an end
the kingdom of Israel.

352 BCE - Construction of Second Temple begins
The Second Temple The Temple the Babylonians destroyed is rebuilt, but it is never the same – the
Ark of the Covenant is missing.

347 BCE - Time of the Great Assembly begins
(Greeks overrun Persian Empire)
The Great Assembly These extraordinary sages defined the essence of Judaism for the Jews of
Israel and the Diaspora.

312 BCE - Greeks conquer Israel
The Greek Empire To the Greeks, what was beautiful was holy; to the Jews, what was holy was
beautiful. These views were bound to clash.

245 BCE - Torah is translated into Greek; Greeks persecute Jews
Greek Persecution Terror reigned—women who allowed their sons to be circumcised were killed
with their babies tied around their necks.

167 BCE - Revolt of Maccabees begins139 BCE - Miracle of Chanukah
(Romans overrun Greek Empire)
The Revolt of the Maccabees The Jewish revolt against the Greeks sets a precedent in human history - it
becomes the world’s first religious war.

219 CE - Mishna compiled by Rabbi Yehuda HaNassiTalmud In a time of chaos, the rabbis decide that they must do the unprecedented—write down the Oral Law.

Seeds of Christianity During a time of cruel oppression of the Jews, a number of splinter sects
sprang up whose members believed that the Apocalypse was at hand.

312 CE - Constantine converts Roman Empire to Christianity
(Fall of Rome and rise of Byzantine Empire)
From Paul to Constantine At first, Christianity was the most successful where people had been attracted
to Judaism but were unwilling to take on all its precepts.

638 CE - Islamic conquest of Jerusalem
The Rise of Islam Mohammed reacted with anger when Jews refused to recognize him as the last
of the prophets.
The Jews of Babylon The oldest and most stable of Jewish communities was saved from the Christians
by Muslims sweeping through the Middle East.

1040 CE - Time of Rashi begins1135 CE - Time of Maimonides begins
The Jews of Spain The land of opportunity for Jews—from the 8th to the 12th century—was
Spain.

1096 CE - Time of Crusades begins
The Crusades The Crusaders came to liberate the Holy Land from the "infidels" and woe to any
Jews who stood in their way.

1144 CE - First Blood Libel
Blood Libel Nothing can rationally explain the extreme Christian accusations leveled
against the Jews at this time: Jews killed babies and drank their blood!

1263 CE - The Great Disputation; time of Nachamanides
1348 CE - Black
Plague
The Black Death Although the Europeans didn’t know what brought on the bubonic plague, they
had no trouble naming the cause—it had to be the Jews!

1478 CE - The Inquisition begins
1492 CE
- Jews expelled from Spain; Columbus discovers
America
(Ottoman Empire takes over the Middle East)
The Inquisition The basic accusation of the Inquisition was that Jews who converted to
Christianity were still secretly Jewish.

1517 CE - Protestant Reformation; time of Martin Luther
The Reformation and the Jews The Reformation exposed the corruption of the Church and brought about the
advent of Protestantism. For the Jews it just meant more bad news.

1567 CE - Jews invited into Poland

The Jews of Poland King Boleslav of Poland invited the Jews, granting them unprecedented rights and
privileges.

1570 CE - Time of the Ari & Kabbalists
The Kabbalists In the 16th century, the mountaintop town of Tzfat became the center of Jewish
mysticism – the Kabbalah.

1698 CE - Time of the Ba’al Shem Tov begins; the
Hassidic Movement
1772 CE - Time of the Misnagdim & Vilna Goan
(The Enlightenment; American Revolution; French Revolution)
The Hassidic Movement
Initially a movement of the poor and uneducated, Hassidism introduced
Kabbalah and spirituality into everyday life.

1791 CE - Jews herded into Pale of Settlement in
Russia
Pale of Settlement An area of Russia where Jews were most oppressed, the Pale of Settlement gave
rise to amazingly good things.

1810 CE - Reform Movement begins in Germany
Reform Movement The German Jews who founded the Reform Movement emphasized their loyalty to the
"fatherland" in order to be accepted in mainstream German society.

1881 CE - Jews made scapegoats for Czar of Russia
The Czars and the Jews In Czarist Russia, government-organized pogroms against the Jews kept the eyes
of masses off the corrupt regime.

1894 CE - Dreyfus Affair in France
The Face of Anti-Semitism Even in such civilized nation as France and the United States, anti-Semitism
never died out.

1897 CE - First Zionist Congress
(World War I;
end of Ottoman Empire)
Modern Zionism
The
First Zionist Conference, held in 1897, was a major event in the
establishment of the modern State of Israel.

1917 CE - British Mandate begins in Palestine;
Balfour Declaration1927 CE - Country of Jordan created by the
British on the East Bank of the Jordan River
The British Mandate
The
British promised to create a Jewish state. Instead they served their own
Arab-linked interests as millions died in the Holocaust.

1933 CE - Hitler comes to power in Germany
(World War II)
The Holocaust
While Nazi Germany proceeded to systematically round up and execute Jews,
the rest of the world closed its eyes and its doors.

1942 CE - Final Solution formulated by the Nazis
The Final Solution
Hitler was mindlessly focused on his goal: the elimination of all Jews from
the planet.

1947 CE - Partition of Palestine by the UN1948 CE - State of Israel declared
The State of Israel
After the British brutally turned away Holocaust survivors from Israel, the
UN voted to partition the land.

1948 CE - War of Independence1964 CE - PLO founded1967 CE - Six Day War and Reunification of
Jerusalem
War
Since its founding in 1948, Israel has been in a constant state of war and
yet it has achieved great economic success.